The number of hate crimes in Quebec would be underestimated

There would be 50 times more hate crime and hate incident in Quebec than official statistics suggest, concluded an unprecedented survey of the Montreal Center for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence (CPRMV).

The first of its kind in the province, the survey showed that 46,000 major Quebecers – 0.7% of this population – said they had been the victim of a hate crime between 2014 and 2017, and 191,000 said victim of a hate incident, reported the Montreal Gazette.

According to Statistics Canada figures, only 855 hate crimes have been reported in the province in three years.

“There is a huge gap between these results and official statistics,” Benjamin Ducol, director of research at CPRMV, told the Montreal Gazette. “We know there are crimes and incidents motivated by hate, but it shows us that they are virtually invisible.”

According to the CPRMV, a hate incident is a non-criminal act that aims to insecure people on the basis of “race, national or ethnic origin, language, color, religion, sex, religion and belief. age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or physical or mental disability. “

The CPRMV survey, conducted by Vox Pop Labs – known for their electoral compass – asked 1843 Quebecers if they had witnessed or been the victim of an incident or hate crime and 35 people said yes.

Thirteen people were reportedly victims of threats or incitement to violence, 15 of harassment, nine of physical violence and eleven of online threats. The main reasons for these incidents are ethnic origin (seven cases), religion and sexual orientation (five cases each).

The sample of positive answers does not extrapolate to the entire province, said Benjamin Ducol, but the CPRMV is currently working to identify hate crimes during the summer of 2017.